That day I was in the King George Medical University. In the parking from driving seat I saw an ambulance stopped besides my car. Few minutes later 4 or 5 men came out and went to OPD. After a while I got down from my car and in the ambulance saw a little baby in the lap of her mother with two other elderly women, they all were weeping. The baby was on oxygen, getting closely I saw she was loosing her breath, an old man was there from there family, he told me that the baby was treated for serious respiratory problem in a private hospital for last 10 days as the condition got even serious they referred her to KGMU with hospital’s ambulance and an attendant. He told me that the attendant with other men had gone to OPD desk to admit the baby. I almost shouted on him, asked him to immediately show me the treatment history, but that too was with the attendant. Then only I knew that the attendant and the ambulance driver were agent/broker of that hospital. I asked that old man to call on cellphone to bring back his men to admit the baby in Trauma Center of KGMU where such serious cases are treated. Few minutes later his other men were coming slowly chatting with each other, I shouted on them to hurry up as the baby was dying without life support equipment.

Baby in Pediatric ICU - K.G.M.C. Lucknow

The attendant quarreled with me not to interfere because he was trying to send the baby to another private hospital to make big commission/brokerage but I didn’t care. Asked the parents to get in the ambulance, the weeping women grabbed my hand and requested me to get the baby in any hospital as they were loosing faith in all those men. I strictly asked the ambulance driver to follow me to the Trauma Center or face the consequences. I jumped in to my car drove as fast as I could watching the ambulance in rear view mirror. When I was at a distance before reaching the gate of Trauma Center I waved the guard to open the security barrier, the ambulance stopped behind my car in Trauma Center. As all the relatives of that baby were unaware what the place it was, I grabbed the baby in my lap keeping her oxygen mask intact asked another security man to hold the oxygen cylinder, we rushed straight to the ICU. Within few minutes the doctor put that baby on life support equipment and drugs.

I walked out, told them all to let the broker and ambulance go back with a lesson, but the driver was still telling them to shift the baby to a private hospital. I shouted them to leave. Later I told the baby’s parents to not to treat the baby any where else. They all were weeping.

Tow days later I received a call at midnight from baby’s father that she died.

Private hospitals have no facilities for serious patients but they admit such cases, treat them ( or rather worsen the patient’s condition) till the patient has cash, when the patient looses all his/her money to them, they refer the patient to Govt hospitals like King George Medical University (KGMU) where treatment is ten to twenty times cheaper in comparison to private hospitals. But there are only one or two such well equipped hospitals. Because such patients arrive in KGMU too late the survival rate is too low.